If you prefer, you can call it the Noodle Effect, but that's neither here nor there.

My point was simply that even though one finds it illogical, one should stick to the technobabble present "in-universe" wherever possible. Hyperspace travel, as presented in the movies as well as the various novels and related media, goes through an alternate "higher" dimension, hyperspace. We know that realspace objects make 'bumps' in hyperspace, whatever that entails. We know that the hyperdrive has a mass shadow sensor. We know that it is 'bad' to go through too much mass shadow, in the sense that it has catastrophic consequences for the ship.

Speed in Hyperspace can be mapped back to realspace, but even though it is coterminous with realspace, that doesn't mean that apparent speed in realspace is relevant. Speed is literally not the defiance of gravity. In realspace, our space-time continuum, gravity bends space-time. Lightspeed is the fastest known, useful speed, and even lightspeed can be manipulated - but it is quite unlikely that lightspeed increases in interstellar space or intergalactic space. As far as I can tell, general consensus is that the math doesn't work - cosmological constant or not.

Besides, gravity can help with speed. You can always trade your potential energy in a gravity well for kinetic energy. Also known as going to a high, steep place and jumping off. In fact, this was part of the plot in the Total Recall remake, with the depiction of the fictional core shuttle.

However, that's off on a tangent. My primary point is that we don't know what the mass shadow really "is", or even what "is" means in Hyperspace. We do know that catastrophic stuff happens if you go through too much mass shadow. We know that translating between dimensions generate stress in the structure translating - at least the way it is done with a hyperdrive. Whether the biologicals that can do this naturally feel stress during the translation, is difficult to say.

We also know that hyperdrive failures can range from time travel to spectacular disintegration. So my personal feeling is that spaghettification is a nice way of visualizing what happens if you disable your mass shadow sensor and go through too much mass shadow. Or, it might be that random pieces of your ship is yanked back to realspace because the hyperspace field is demodulated in a random fashion if it is battered with too much mass shadow.

In a sense, going "fast" (whatever that means in Hyperspace) through something like that might even make the entire thing worse, because the field is stronger, and so the effects might be even worse when you're even more brutally yanked, piece-wise, back to realspace.

In any case, for SW purposes, I throw out all the technobabble. Hyperdrives push a ship at whatever speed through real space. "Hyperspace" is not a place or dimension or what have you in my SWU, but rather a specific set of "lanes" (like the aforementioned freeway systems) that is reserved for FTL travel. You might call it "hyper space" (with that extra space before the "space"... since, you know... there's lots of it).

Going on a tangent--because it's fun--concerning the remark about potential ---> kinetic energy thing, that's a bit of a red herring, assuming that you understood my point about speed as it relates to gravity. The "speed" to which I was referring was speed achieved by a force that initially surpassed all the gravitational forces acting on the object in question. This is fundamental to being able to locomote at all.

Though, I will concede that a so-called "gravity well" could be used to save fuel on a FTL trip by simply "coasting" along whatever arc or vector may conveniently pass at an appropriate distance from a celestial body in order to do so, but then additional fuel will be required to break free of that gravitational pull once the course requires such a change of heading. You might equate it to a down-hill section on a freeway.

And though I'm being way too specific for a Space Opera setting - strictly speaking, the Hyperspace travel in Star Wars isn't necessarily FTL in the sense that the ship at any time actually travels faster than light; we don't know what light speed is in Hyperspace (or even whether the concept is relevant), so Hyperspace travel is technically dimensional travel, if one wants to make the distinction. Effectively, though, it is FTL in the sense that it allows one to travel from point A to point B faster than light is able to cover the same distance.

Personally, I prefer the canon way of considering hyperspace as opposed to your interpretation. Your interpretation is more akin to an Alcubierre drive... which is pretty close to Warp drive. Which is (gasp!) Star Trek, not Star Wars!

Not that it matters - I like both of the fandoms. Though I may prefer Star Trek DS9 to any other Trek stuff, and it is perhaps the least Trek of the various shows.

Is there a film dialogue wherein hyperspace is defined as you have presented it? In film we see ships litterally accelerate through real space to such a speed that they reach the vanishing point very quickly.

Extra dimensional mumbojumbo actually feelsmore Trek and less Wars, to me, regardless of what canon actually says. Trek has always felt like the more astrophysics oriented slant, while SW is more like fantasy in space.

I'm glad to see this thread has moved past the below exchange. Immediately after discovering this last night, I suffered an internet outage so I couldn't address it in a more timely manner. But it still needs addressed.

CRMcNeill wrote:

Sutehp wrote:

CRMcNeill wrote:

Sutehp wrote:

CRMcNeill wrote:

Zarn wrote:

It's a good question. Other good questions are, "when is the universe", "why is the universe", and "is the universe"? All of these can have non-trivial answers.

To which God the Father replied - like any good parent - “because I said so.”

Who?

Really?

Yes, really, who?

It’s a play on a couple different concepts of Christian theology (God the Father being one of the three aspects of the Trinity, combined with the creation story in which God simply spoke the universe into existence), combined with the oft repeated line used by a frustrated parent who wishes to end an inquisitive child’s line of questioning: “because I SAID so.”

Not really. He knows who you were talking about, and his agenda backfired because now there is outright Christianity on this forum. Kudos for taking his professed ignorance at face value, but FYI, you didn't really have to explain your joke.

For the record, I have no problem with the original joke. CRM wasn't on here preaching the gospel (which I would not tolerate). Divine creators are a very common aspect of a vast multitude of belief-systems. "God the Father" is probably in the most common frame of reference among those reading the forum, but it easily would have worked with <Insert parental creator deity here>. Deism was popular among our nation's founders. Science, which I venerate highly, doesn't disprove the existence of a divine creator because cosmologists don't really have any clue what caused the Big Bang.

I'm glad this exchange happened because it highlights something I can't believe I forgot to include in the forum guideline on religion: antitheism. Let's please move past this here. Thanks._________________*
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In film we see ships litterally accelerate through real space to such a speed that they reach the vanishing point very quickly.

We don't see that for the whole journey. We see this blue-white swirly stuff through the cockpit windows for most of the journey. That's when the ship is in the hyperspace dimension. The quick acceleration is part of the transition, only right before the entry into hyperspace which is the vanishing point (vanishing from realspace).

Naaman wrote:

Extra dimensional mumbojumbo actually feelsmore Trek and less Wars, to me, regardless of what canon actually says. Trek has always felt like the more astrophysics oriented slant, while SW is more like fantasy in space.

I think there is some truth to that, but don't overestimate Trek's scientific value. Trek is technically also space opera, but yes it is admittedly more sci-fi-ish. Trek, like Wars, is well-versed in scientific gobbledegook.

Yes. I've always interprted the blue and white swirly stuff as "speed blurs" just like is done in (for example) The Fast and the Furious when they use a shot of NOS.

In other words, the ship is moving so fast through real space that the stars and planets and galaxies just blur together. You can acieve a similar ffect just spinning around in a circle while looking at the sky... or heck, just lokk at a fan while its running. Paint a red dot on one of the blades and watch it become a circle.

Not sure where I read that. I've been doing a lot of SW reading lately.

But, that's why we see them zip off to a visual horizon in the films.

The X-Wing novels explained that as "pseudomotion", effectively, an optical illusion created by the jump into or out of hyperspace._________________"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
Amazing. Everything you just said was wrong.

What you describe is called a gravitational slingshot maneuver, or gravity assist. And no, it doesn't necessarily cost more fuel - in fact, it is used to save fuel.

Talking about slingshot maneuvers, i've often wondered what WOULD the benefit In game, be to a ship doing a sling shot maneuver, say around a planet's moon??_________________It's Not who you kill, but how they die!
You cannot dodge it if you do not know it is coming, and you cannot hit it if you do not know its there.

Not sure where I read that. I've been doing a lot of SW reading lately.

But, that's why we see them zip off to a visual horizon in the films.

The X-Wing novels explained that as "pseudomotion", effectively, an optical illusion created by the jump into or out of hyperspace.

Isn't it great how the novel has to justify its interpretation when it conflicts with primary canon?

The Sourcebook says that hyperspace can only be entered by ships traveling at faster than light speeds. Therefore, a ship must be accelerated to FTL speeds before it enters hyperspace--what we see is that ship doing that. Accelerating very fast until, boom, it enters hyperspace.

But what if hyperspace doesn't really change much but shrink the empty space? So, hyperspace is simply laid out exactly like realspace, but with a lot of the empty space removed. Sharp gravity gradients around stars and planets somewhat "insulate" them from the space-warping effect, which is why you can travel very far, very fast in hyperspace, but wind up having to watch out for realspace gravity wells.

I'm not entirely sure how this would work, mind you._________________"I’m telling you, you’ll never have a deeper sleep than curled up in a Wookie’s lap."
“We're going to win this war, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”
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I just think Hyperspace is a place where time is different. We already know that time is not constant in the real world. Time dilation experiments have been performed. HERE'S ONE FROM 1971.

My thought is that Hyperspace works with/manipulates time dilation in some fashion. It's reverses the effect, somehow, working with Einstein's theories.

Typically, time on a planet is much longer than from those on a ship. Hyperspace somehow manipulates that so that time on a ship is the same as time on the planet.

And, therefore, the distance between two points in space really doesn't matter. If there are no obstacles, then a ship could jump to far side of the galaxy in almost no measurable amount of time--practically instantaneously. But, the distances in real space are long, and there are lots of gravitational bodies to avoid. Thus, routes must be known to avoid these obstacles, and time spent in Hyperpace is longer than a moment.